Baroque Palace of Oradea

The Baroque Palace of Oradea, also know as Palatul Baroc Oradea (Rom.) or Muzeul Tarii Crisurilor [http://www.mtariicrisurilor.ro/] (Rom.) (Eng. Museum of the Rivers Country) or The Bishopric Palace of Oradea.

The Baroque Palace of Oradea, located as the name implies, in the city of Oradea, in Bihor county, Romania. It was founded in 1762 by the Baron Bishop Adam Patachich, as The Roman Catholic Bishopric Palace of northern Transylvania. Illustrious Viennese architect Anton Franz Hillebrandt, designer of many Austro-Hungarian palaces, one of Europe's 18th century best, designed the palace and plan the city's posh side as Baroque quarter, while engineer A.J. Neumann was in charge of palace's massive construction, complete with its 365 exterior windows resembling the days of year and 120 large, extravagant rooms distributed on three lfloor plans.

The architecture of the palace is of late Austrian Baroque style, a more sober and practical type compared to the overly ornamented French Baroque for example. The building was meant to resemble on a smaller scale the famous Royal Belvedere (palace) of Vienna, which, likely, was one of the reasons along with other religious conflicts that made Empress Maria Theresa of Austria to repudiate the founder, Baron Adam Patachich, the bishop of Oradea between 1759 and 1776; he was then sent to another diocese, in Kalocsa, Hungary. Nevertheless , the baron was a charismatic, a highly educated humanist and an illuminated patron of arts, who is mostly remembered for the fine music and musicians he surrounded himself with: this is where Michael Haydn, famous composer and Joseph Haydn's brother, he worked as a Kapellmeister at the bishop's orchestra, who also employed at the court other famous European composers and violinists like Wenzel Pichl and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, whom between 1765-1769 served as a Musikdirektor.

Finally, in 1771, the Austro-Hungarian and Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa of Austria, together her son, future Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, arrived here in a visit, to make peace with a place whose project she did not initially fancied.In 1773 the palace misfortunately burned down entirely in a mysterious fire but was reconstructed immediately by the next appointed bishop, after its very exact and original plans .

In the year 1855, a new side and entrance was added graciously in tone and respect with the initial building, with grand double stairways. Later in time, after Romania gained possession of Transylvania, remained under church's patronage but during the socialiste regime, seized as state property.

On Jan. 17 1971, the Baroque Palace becomes a county museum hosting many large and fine archeological, historical, natural history, etnographical and art collections under the name of "Muzeul Tarii Crisurilor" (Museum of the Three Rivers Land). The museum has aproximatelly 400 000 pieces divided under four main collections: History and Archeology, Ethnography, Art and Natural History. Famous for its world class Neolithic and Bronze Age collection, the museum also boasts treasures from Ancient Egypt and Greece. The ethnography section has probably the best of western Transylvanian folk exhibit anywhere, including a large selection of traditional costumes, peasant house appliances, pottery and painted Easter eggs.

The highlights of the Natural History section are the prehistoric animals including cave bears, giant elk, different mammoth types or dinosaurs (like Iguanodons, Valdosaurus or Camptosaurus). Interior courtyard is dotted by a long row of Romanian monarch busts added during the museum years.

The front courtyard is an artistic park with large old bronze and marble statues of historical figures and also home to a famous Baroque parish church erected in 1752 even before the palace, a work of the Italian architect Giovanni Battista Ricca modelated after the mother church of the Jesuites, Church of the Gesu in Rome. The basilica contains the relics of King Saint Ladislaus, born in year 1040, a splint of his skull being kept here in a gold box. In 1992, the Pope John Paul II trough Vatican's decree, raised the church to a holy basilica rank.

In 2003, like many other edifices, The Baroque Palace of Oradea has been restituted by the Government of Romania to the Roman-Catholic Church, but still hosting the museum meanwhile, until further negotiations.